The Capstone Experience
in Environmental Studies

at the University of Washington

Capstone Quick Links

Capstone Wiki:
All Capstone Information and Forms

How to Recruit Capstone Interns and
Other Information for New Partners

Information for Site Supervisors

Information for Faculty Advisors

Information for Capstone Students

Capstone Requirements for Students Seeking Deparment-Level Honors

Capstone Projects Currently Available for Students

ENVIR 490 Course Webpage

ENVIR 491 Information

ENVIR 492 Course Webpage

Capstone Conference Webpage

Program on the Environment Homepage

Charlie Delius demonstrates how to make biodiesel for a workshop at the Cascade People's Center, Seattle

In architecture, a capstone is the final building block in a structure--the stone at the center of an arch, for example. The capstone plays much the same role in the Environmental Studies curriculum: it is designed to be the culmination of students' undergraduate education. All Environmental Studies majors at the University of Washington are required to undertake a year-long Capstone Experience, and they generally do so during their senior year.

Each Environmental Studies student designs his or her own capstone project, and UW faculty advise and supervise this process. For their capstone projects, most students generally work at an internship with a community partner, create their own research project, or engage in hands-on study of environmental issues abroad.

The Capstone Experience is designed to serve as a bridge between students' undergraduate education and their next steps--either in the job market or in graduate school. The capstone allows students to gain valuable experience, explore career possibilities, and build a wide spectrum of professional communication skills. Furthermore, the capstone courses require them to make connections between their individual projects and the broader environmental, social, scientific, and political contexts in which those projects take place. The Environmental Studies degree program teaches interdisciplinary problem-solving skills, and the capstone gives students a chance to apply and hone their skills and knowledge outside of the classroom. The Capstone Experience requires students to integrate classroom learning and applied environmental work. The end result is an experience that is simultaneously academically rigorous and eminently practical--as well as personally meaningful to the student.

The Capstone Experience is one of the great strengths of the Environmental Studies degree program. In 2007, when the Program on the Environment (PoE) won the UW's coveted Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence, David Fenner, the former assistant vice provost, lauded the success of the capstone program: "The capstone presentations of PoE students are a marvel of synthesis, exploration, and youthful discovery. These students tackle complicated issues and wrestle them into effective and educational presentations. In these . . .capstone projects, PoE faculty and students make their textbooks literally come alive." Organization of the Capstone Experience The capstone program requires at least one full academic year to complete. Environmental Studies majors must complete the sequence of three capstone courses, ENVIR 490-491-492.

Ed Marsette gathers mussels along the shore of Vashon Island to test for toxins

ENVIR 490: Pre-Capstone Seminar
Two credits; offered autumn and spring quarter

The primary purpose of ENVIR 490 is to help capstone students construct a well-organized, challenging but manageable capstone project. During the first part of the course, students meet with potential supervisors to learn about internship opportunities. Students also discuss the relationship between applied environmental work and scholarly work in Environmental Studies. By the end of the course, students complete a capstone proposal and a learning contract, and these documents specify when, where, and how the student will do his or her capstone work. These documents also spell out the student's learning goals and the deliverables that he or she will create during ENVIR 491. A student may not register for ENVIR 491 until his or her learning contract is approved by a site supervisor AND a UW faculty advisor.

ENVIR 491: Capstone Experience
At least five credits; each credit requires 30 hours of capstone work; offered every quarter

When students are enrolled in ENVIR 491, they are working on their projects outside of the classroom. Every student works closely with a site supervisor, who directly oversees the capstone project. Site supervisors are generally managers who work for our community partners. In addition, each student meets with a UW faculty advisor about once a month. The primary role of the faculty advisor is to suggest avenues of inquiry, types of analyses, and scholarly readings that will help the student set his or her first-hand experiences within a broader context. Both the faculty advisor and the site supervisor also help the capstone instructor evaluate the deliverables that the student creates during ENVIR 491. Students must complete at least 30 hours of work in the field for each credit of ENVIR 491. Therefore, every capstone project requires a commitment of at least 150 hours. Students and site supervisors can schedule this work in any way that they find to be mutually satisfactory, and students may extend ENVIR 491 over more than one quarter. In order to receive departmental honors in Environmental Studies, students must complete at least eight credits of ENVIR 491.

ENVIR 492: Post-Capstone Seminar
Three credits; offered autumn and spring quarter

ENVIR 492 requires students to analyze how their Capstone Experience relates to a larger scholarly context and to important environmental issues. To this end, students write a substantial analysis paper, and they present the results of their projects during a capstone conference at the end of the quarter. The course also helps students hone career skills and explore future work and graduate study possibilities, as well as the steps necessary to realize those possibilities. ENVIR 491 and 492 are a hyphenated sequence, so students' work in these courses is evaluated as a single unit with a single grade for both courses. Students do not receive a grade for their work in the ENVIR 491-492 sequence until the end of ENVIR 492.

For additional information about the Environmental Studies Capstone Experience, please consult the capstone wiki, which contains all capstone policies, forms, timetables, and guidelines.

If you would like to learn more about students' projects, please consult the capstone conference webpage, which contains brief descriptions of many capstone projects.